Does the MacBook notch show in screenshots and recordings?

No. The notch does not show in screenshots or screen recordings on a MacBook. It is a cutout in the hardware, not something drawn on the screen, so when macOS captures the screen it saves the full rectangle it draws, including the strip of menu bar that runs past the camera.

That surprises people the first time they open a screenshot and find a clean, unbroken menu bar across the top. This post explains why it works that way, what your screenshots and recordings actually contain, what other people see when you share your screen, and the one case where a black band does appear.

Why the notch never appears in a capture

The display on a notched MacBook is a rectangle with a bite taken out of the top middle, where the camera sits. macOS does not draw a bite-shaped picture. It draws a full rectangle, at the display's full height, and simply lays out the menu bar so that nothing important lands in the middle: app menus run along the left of the notch, and status icons such as the clock, Wi-Fi and battery run along the right. The patch under the camera is still part of the picture macOS draws. You never see it, because the glass has no pixels there.

A screenshot or a screen recording is taken from that picture, not from the physical screen. macOS has no reason to paint a black notch into it, so it doesn't. The same goes for the rounded top corners of the display: your screen has them, your screenshots don't.

If you want the background on what the notch is and why Apple added it, what is the notch on a MacBook covers it.

What a screenshot from a notched MacBook looks like

Take a screenshot of the whole screen with Shift-Command-3 and open it in Preview. You will usually see:

• A full-width menu bar. It runs straight across the top, with a gap in the middle where neither menus nor icons sit. That gap is the space the notch covers on your screen. To anyone else it just looks like an oddly empty menu bar.
• No hidden status icons. Icons that macOS hides because they would run into the notch are not drawn at all, so a screenshot won't reveal them either. Menu bar icons hidden behind the notch explains how to get them back.
• Square corners. The rounded corners of the display are not in the image.
• A slightly tall image. The strip the menu bar lives in sits on top of the usual 16:10 screen, so a full screenshot is a little taller than a 16:10 picture of the same width.

If the menu bar is the part you don't want, capture less than the whole screen. Shift-Command-4 lets you drag a box around what you need, and Shift-Command-4 followed by Space turns the pointer into a camera that captures one window. Or crop afterwards in Preview: drag a selection and choose Tools > Crop.

Does the notch show in screen recordings?

No, for the same reason. A screen recording is a series of the same full-rectangle pictures, so it shows the menu bar with its empty middle and no notch.

On a Mac, press Shift-Command-5 to open the Screenshot toolbar. Choose Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion, then click Record. To stop, click the stop button in the menu bar, or press Command-Control-Escape. QuickTime Player's File > New Screen Recording opens the same toolbar in recent versions of macOS. Under Options you can pick a microphone if you want to talk over the recording, and choose where the file is saved.

There are two things worth knowing before you record:

• Full screen apps bring a black band. When an app goes full screen on a notched MacBook, macOS moves it below the notch and turns the strip beside the notch black. A capture of the entire screen usually includes that strip, so your video or screenshot gets a black band across the top. Record a selected portion instead, or capture the window. Full screen apps and the notch explains the band in more detail.
• Some video comes out black. Many streaming services protect their video, so a screenshot or recording of a film playing in an app or a browser may show a black rectangle where the picture should be. That has nothing to do with the notch.

What do people see when you share your screen?

When you share your entire screen in a video call app, or with macOS screen sharing, the other person sees the same thing a screenshot shows: the whole rectangle, menu bar included, with no notch. They see your clock, your status icons and anything else in the menu bar, plus any notification banner that slides in at the top right.

A few habits keep a shared screen tidy:

1. Share a window, not the screen. Most video call apps let you pick one window. Viewers then see that window and nothing else, which also keeps the menu bar private.
2. Turn on Do Not Disturb first. Open Control Center, click Focus and choose Do Not Disturb, so banners don't appear mid-presentation.
3. Check the sharing setting. In recent versions of macOS, System Settings > Notifications has an option to allow notifications when mirroring or sharing the display. If your Mac shows it, turning it off helps, though it may not cover every video call app, so Do Not Disturb is the surer switch.
4. Tidy the desktop. Files and folders on the desktop show up when you share the whole screen. Stacks (right-click the desktop and choose Use Stacks) gathers them into neat piles in a click.

How to take a clean screenshot on a notched MacBook

These shortcuts work on every Mac, notch or not:

Screenshots land on the desktop by default. To change that, open the Screenshot toolbar with Shift-Command-5, click Options and pick another folder under Save to. The same menu has a timer, which helps when you need to open a menu before the shot is taken, and the Show Floating Thumbnail setting, which puts a preview in the corner for a few seconds so you can mark it up before it saves.

For window captures, hold Option as you click the window to leave out the shadow. And if you are capturing a full screen app, the window capture is the easiest way to avoid the black band along the top.

Software notches do show up

There is one kind of notch that can appear in a capture: one drawn by software. Anything an app draws on the screen is part of the picture macOS saves, so a fake notch on a Mac without a real one is just pixels.

Notchpals is a good example. Its characters come down from the notch to nudge you about water, eye breaks, standing up and bed. On a MacBook with a notch they use the real one. On a Mac without one, or a MacBook working with its lid shut, Notchpals draws a black island at the top middle of the main display instead, and because that island is drawn, it shows up in a full screen capture. A character caught mid-visit, speech bubble and all, will be in the picture on any Mac. Click one during a recording and it answers, so a tutorial can pick up an unplanned co-host:

BlipHello! Did you need me? Or just poking? Both are great!

Before you record a tutorial or share your screen, know what the crew notices. It holds back whenever the mic or camera is live, so a recording with your voice on, or a video call, is covered. It does not detect screen sharing, and a silent screen recording looks to it like ordinary work. For those, pause the crew from its menu bar icon, a pair of eyes, for an hour (or until morning). The eyes close while the crew is quiet, which makes a quick check before you press Record.